+ A
A -
Reuters
WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump on Friday cast doubt on the woman who has accused his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, saying if the attack was"as bad as she says"it would have been immediately reported to police.
After days of restrained comments on the allegations by California professor Christine Blasey Ford, Trump took to Twitter to question her account of what happened between her and Kavanaugh at a party in 1982 when they were in high school.
The tweets came as a U.S. Senate committee was struggling with what to do about Kavanaugh, with Democrats demanding more scrutiny of him and Republicans trying to move ahead with a vote on his nomination in an increasingly volatile political climate.
The Senate Judiciary Committee had delayed a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation after Ford's allegations emerged last week. Ford's lawyers and committee staff were negotiating how she would testify.
Kavanaugh cannot be confirmed for a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court without approval from the Senate. For Trump, approval of Kavanaugh would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance a White House effort to tilt the American judiciary more to the right.
"I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,"Trump said.
